derFunkenstein wrote:That's too bad - while I'm too young to really remember him, it seems that along with Bill Lee he was one of baseball's true oddballs.

Alas, he only really had one great year (which he started as an NRI in spring training), though that wasn't exactly his fault:

Joe Posnanski wrote:It’s impossible to look back at Fidrych’s remarkable 1976 — knowing what we know now about pitch counts and such things — and not cringe at the way manager Ralph Houk abused him. Of course, nobody was counting pitches in 1976, but even so it’s hard to believe a manager would allow a rookie to throw five extra-inning games. Five! Or how about this stretch: From July 29th to August 29th, The Bird threw a nine-inning game, a seven-inning game, a nine-inning game, another nine-inning game, another nine-inning game, a 10-inning game, a nine-inning game and an 11 1/3 inning game — each one on three-days rest. Imagine that: Fidrych threw 73 1/3 innings and seven complete games in a month.

To give you a comparison, K-Rod threw 68 1/3 innings all last year.

To give you a comparison, Johan Santana has thrown nine complete games in his career.

Fidrych threw 24 complete games that year (his rookie season, age 21), and compiled a 2.32 ERA, both leading the league, and he started the all-star game for the AL. He would start only another 27 games in his career.

derFunkenstein wrote:Joe Posnanski - It’s impossible to look back at Fidrych’s remarkable 1976 — knowing what we know now about pitch counts and such things — and not cringe at the way manager Ralph Houk abused him. Of course, nobody was counting pitches in 1976, but even so it’s hard to believe a manager would allow a rookie to throw five extra-inning games. Five! Or how about this stretch: From July 29th to August 29th, The Bird threw a nine-inning game, a seven-inning game, a nine-inning game, another nine-inning game, another nine-inning game, a 10-inning game, a nine-inning game and an 11 1/3 inning game — each one on three-days rest. Imagine that: Fidrych threw 73 1/3 innings and seven complete games in a month.

To give you a comparison, K-Rod threw 68 1/3 innings all last year.

To give you a comparison, Johan Santana has thrown nine complete games in his career.

Fidrych threw 24 complete games that year (his rookie season, age 21), and compiled a 2.32 ERA, both leading the league, and he started the all-star game for the AL. He would start only another 27 games in his career.

They were re-playing a pre-ASG 1976 game on MLB network this afternoon when I got home. I figured when I turned it on that the Tigers would win and that he'd go all 9, but watching him was a real treat. He talked to the baseball, making motions like "I want you to go this way or that way", and it was kinda weird.

The point of my little story, though, is that Bob Eucker was saying that teams were already - this game was his 8th win of the season - asking the Tigers to fiddle around their rotation so that Fidrych would pitch on the road at their parks. There were 50k people at Tiger Stadium for the game they were playing. It was obvious he was the next big thing.

But you can only throw 250+ innings in a year once, apparently, and that's too bad. They'd said after the replay was over that it wasn't until 1985 - 5 years after he finally retired - that he was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.

My father would often talk about how amazing The Bird was to me when I was a little kid, and my bro-in-law said he was his favorite player when he was like, 10. My wife said she remebers him well, because she would always watch the games too. Said he got his name because he looked like Big Bird.